Why customers want to buy together and why businesses must catch up

If you work at a winery, wine merchant, airline, tour operator, hotel, or experience business, this is already affecting you whether you see it or not.

You sell products and experiences that are rarely consumed alone. Wine is shared. Trips are planned together. Flights, accommodation, tastings, tours, and events are coordinated by groups. One person may initiate the purchase, but the decision and the cost are collective.

Yet, most checkout experiences still assume the opposite. One buyer. One decision. One card.

That mismatch between how customers actually buy and how businesses expect them to buy is now a structural problem. It quietly suppresses conversion, limits order value, and causes high intent purchases to stall or disappear.

This article is not about speeding up checkout or adding another payment option. It is about a deeper shift in buying behavior that directly impacts businesses selling shared products and experiences.

Most discussions about checkout focus on optimization. Faster pages. Fewer fields. New ways to pay. Those improvements matter, but they miss the core issue.

Checkout is no longer failing because it is slow or clunky. It is failing because it is designed for the wrong buying behavior.

Customers are not becoming more individual. They are becoming more collaborative, seeking connections that are now made possible through new digital experiences. Decisions are made together. Value is shared. Risk is avoided collectively. Yet, checkout still assumes one person will decide, commit, and pay alone.

That assumption is now broken.

Research from Cobuyr shows that 86 percent of wine consumers want the option to buy online together. That is not a niche preference or a future trend. It is a clear signal that existing commerce experiences are misaligned with customer expectations today.

The friction shows up in familiar ways. Customers hesitate to put large group purchases on a personal card. They do not want to spend hours chasing friends for reimbursements. They are uncomfortable taking on financial risk if someone drops out. As prices rise, this friction intensifies. A case of wine. A holiday rental. Flights and accommodation for a group.

Shared intent exists, but checkout blocks it.

Even when someone is willing to pay upfront, they often cannot. Credit card limits are reached. Fraud checks trigger declines. Large group purchases fail mid checkout. What looks like indecision is often a technical or financial constraint.

This behavior is not limited to wine. In travel, industry data shows that the use of flexible and split payment options has grown by more than 20 percent year on year on some platforms. As prices increase, consumers actively look for ways to share or spread payment rather than commit large amounts alone. When checkout does not support this, demand stalls or disappears.

Shared intent also fades quickly. When checkout does not allow individuals to commit separately, momentum is lost. Messages go unanswered. Plans change. Purchases quietly disappear. Businesses see the symptoms as inconsistent conversion or lower order values, but the root cause often sits inside checkout design.

This behavior is easy to recognize in everyday consumer moments:

• A customer wants to buy a mixed case of wine for a dinner party but does not want to pay for all twelve bottles alone
• Someone finds the perfect holiday rental for a group but hesitates when they see the full price at checkout
• A group plans a vacation that includes flights and a hotel, but no one wants to front the entire cost
• Friends organize a tasting, tour, or experience and delay booking while they collect money manually

In each case, the intent is real. What fails is the mechanism to commit together.

It is important to be precise about what solves this. Split payments simply divide the cost of a single purchase across multiple cards. Group buying with split payments is fundamentally different.

Group buying allows people to build the purchase together, not just pay for it. Each participant commits to a share of the product. Quantities are split, not just costs. The order reflects real world behavior such as shared cases, gifts, or group bookings, and it only completes once the group has committed. Checkout becomes a shared buying experience rather than a payment workaround.

To describe this shift clearly, Cobuyr has coined the term Social Buying. Social Buying captures a growing preference among consumers to purchase together, coordinating decisions, products, and payments as a group within the buying journey itself. This is not post purchase reimbursement or informal sharing. It is collaborative buying by design.

When group buying is enabled inside checkout, those same everyday moments play out differently. The customer confirms their share, invitations are sent automatically, and each participant pays directly online. No one fronts the full amount. No reimbursements are needed. The purchase completes when the group commits.

The value of group buying only materializes when it lives inside existing checkout. Customers do not want to be redirected or asked to manage shared purchases elsewhere. Group buying works best when added as a plugin to current checkout, sitting alongside existing payment options and activating only when customers choose to buy together.

This is why it is not complex to add. Group buying does not replace checkout. It extends it. Customers who want to buy individually continue as normal. Customers who want to buy together are given an additional option. Implementation is fast, low risk, and does not require re-platforming or redesigning customer journeys.

The upside goes beyond preventing lost sales. Group buying with split payments creates a new layer of customer insight. It reveals who buys together, how groups form and repeat, which products are social by nature, and which customers introduce others organically. Checkout becomes a source of intelligence, not just transactions.

Wine, travel, and experiences are inherently social. Checkout has simply failed to keep up. Supporting Social Buying is not about adding a feature. It is about aligning commerce with how people decide, coordinate, commit and purchase today – together.

The real question is how long your business can afford to ignore how customers already want to buy together.